Learn to Live the Dream of Martin Luther King's Promised Land

By Dr. Russ

Today is Martin Luther King Monday.  Monday is Dr. Russ Busster day.  Today I offer up some Bussters to help you knock out any pessimism standing in the way of your belief that you can make a difference for equality and freedom for all humans.

According to Dr. King we all have the following choice:

• Walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness.

King’s persistent call to action, “What are you doing for others?” is as loud today 47 years after his death as it was in 1968.  For King, a life of service was the hallmark of a “full life.”

On February 4, 1968, from his pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church, he asked that we remember the following after his mortal death:

• I’d like for somebody to mention that . . . Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others . . . that I did try in my life . . . to love and serve humanity.

We do not celebrate King Day on the anniversary of his death, but on the Monday closest to his birth of January 15 (1929).

On this date we have the opportunity to not just mention King’s service to others, but to shout out, "DR. KING: YOU NOT ONLY TRIED BUT YOU DID LEAD A LIFE OF SERVICE TO OTHERS WITH LOVE FOR ALL HUMANITY!"

Now it is our turn to not just SHOUT but to WALK where Dr. King wanted us to go.  In a recent article, his son --Martin Luther King III-- implores us to not just seek his father’s dream of freedom and equality for all, but to live our lives in each and every moment in service to others.  Today, I take some key ideas and phrases from this article to form the following Dr. Russ Bussters.

Dr. Russ Bussters for Living the Dream

1. If it has to be our way or the highway, we are not living the dream.  We live the dream by solving conflicts with greater understanding, reconciliation and cooperation.
2. If we speak with hateful rhetoric we are exercising our right to free speech, but we are not living the dream.  We live the dream when we invite all sisters and brothers of any race, faith, nationality, sexual orientation or political belief to be part of the human family.
3. We are not living the dream when we claim that God is our side.  We are living the dream when like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King we pray that we are on God’s side.
4. We are not living the dream when we espouse there is only one exclusionary and correct voice of God’s word; one right religious ideology.  We are living the dream when we walk side by side with members of every religious faith.
5. We are not living the dream when we ignore the needs of the poor and less fortunate.  We are living the dream when we show compassion for the poor through donations of time and money.
6. We are not living the dream if we advocate violence over non-violence. We are living the dream if we make non-violence not only the means to the end, but the end itself.
7. We are not living the dream if we simply entitle the poor to a free lunch.  We are living the dream if we teach them how to earn their own wages so they can buy their own lunch.
8. We are not living the dream when we are idle and complacent about any form of injustice anywhere.  We are living the dream when we attempt to fight, with peaceful means, all threats to justice everywhere.
9. We are partially living the dream with donations of time and money to the poor.  We are fully living the dream when we work to find ways to end their unemployment and put them back to work rebuilding our tattered infrastructure, reducing pollution and saving the environment.
10. Learn to live the dream with this commitment:   

• Find new ways to reach out to one another, to heal our divisions, and build bridges of hope and opportunity benefiting all people. (Martin Luther King III).